


Five Times Coulson and Skye Wake Up Together

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coulson and his ridiculous crush on Skye, Coulson being in awe of Skye, Coulson figuring out that he loves Skye, Coulson trying to do right by Skye, F/M, Season 2 feels, and what that means, in a super fucking angsty way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:36:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3642030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does what it says on the tin. Coulson figuring out his feelings for Skye.<br/>Feels for 2x12, 2x13, 2x14 and nebulous near-ish happy future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Coulson and Skye Wake Up Together

1.

She wakes up slowly, clearly groggy as she takes in her surroundings. She’s facing away from him, but he can see it in stages — waking up, getting her head around what happened, realizing where she is.

And then she rolls over with a groan.

If she’s startled to see him in her bedroom, where he’d carried her while she was under the sedative effect of the new souped-up icer, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she just looks at him for a long moment — his hunched frame, elbows resting on his knees, feet planted wide apart. He looks pathetic and he knows it. 

“This is the third time in a week I’ve woken up to see you.”

It had happened twice while she was in quarantine, his pressing need to be near her barely satisfied by the glass wall between them.

The truth is, it’s not satisfied now, either.

Her voice is light, purposefully trying to avoid heaviness.

“I’m thinking this will be my new thing,” he jokes back, but the words are stilted.

“Watching people while they sleep?”

“Hmm,” he agrees. “Makes me feel like a romantic lead.”

Skye laughs, almost real, almost relaxed.

“I always thought that was kind of creepy, didn’t you?”

Coulson swallows.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No,” Skye cuts in almost before he finishes the question. “No, I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah.”

Silence falls between them.

It's not that he wants to watch her while she sleeps, of course. Just that he can't bear to be away from her; the same reason he ran down into that city, the same reason he barely made it out alive, the same reason May is looking at him like he might be unstable.

Perhaps he flatters himself, but today he also wanted to make sure she didn't wake up alone. 

“Is Sif going to take me away?”

“No. What you did…”

“It was just an icer,” Skye cuts in, but Coulson continues as though she hadn’t.

“...shows that you’ve got it in you to get control of it. She believes in you.”

Skye nods and falls silent.

“What if —”

“You will.”

Coulson swallows and drops his eyes to the floor, unable to watch Skye’s own fears play out across her face. He wishes he knew how to comfort her.

There’s a long pause between them.

“Fitz told me what he did.”

“He was just trying to be a good friend.”

“I know. And with tensions as high as they were, I understand why he made that call. Why you made that call.”

“But you wish we hadn’t.”

“I wish you had told me.”

The words are too honest, too real, too  _hurt_ . He wants to be the one that she goes to when she’s in crisis, but he also knows it’s their closeness that makes it so hard for her to come to him with something that scares her. He understands — actually, he understands  _perfectly_ , because he’s been there, more terrified of Skye’s rejection than of the alien presence slowly killing him.

“I wanted to,” she finally answers, but the final syllable is muffled by an uncontrolled sob. “I knew you wouldn’t…”

“That I wouldn’t what?”

“You wouldn’t think I was an  _abomination_. You wouldn’t think I should be destroyed.”

“I would never —”

“I know.”

“Skye.” She finally really looks at him,  _really_ looks at him, and he knows that his own eyes are as terrified, as red, as watery as hers.

He stands from his chair and moves to take a seat on her bed.

“You’re not an abomination.”

“I  _am_ though. I’m a weapon. I can’t control it. I was made to be —”

It’s his arms around her that cut her off, but her words are unintelligible through the sobs long before they stop.

“Just breathe,” he whispers against her ear. “Just breathe.”

She does, quieting herself against his shoulder as they shift together on the bed.

“You’re not a weapon. Weapons don’t have consciences. Weapons can’t control themselves, they can only be controlled.”

“What if I can only be controlled?”

“Plenty of people have learned to control dangerous gifts. You can, too.”

He has  _such faith_ in this point. But his faith isn’t accompanied by the knowledge of how to help her, so it still feels hopeless.

“Thank you for standing up for me,” she whispers into his neck, and Coulson’s arms reflexively tighten around her.

“I —”

He doesn’t finish his thought. He doesn’t really know what the thought is, anyways.

“I know,” she answers against his shoulder.

 

2.

He doesn’t even try to stop himself from going directly to her bunk after Sif’s departure, and when she’s not there he knows immediately where she is.

“Skye,” he knocks on the door to the chamber on the Bus.

It’s quiet on the other side of the door and he has a stupid moment of hoping that maybe he’s wrong. Maybe she’s not here afterall.

“Skye.”

“Hmmm,” he hears her stir, as though waking from sleep.

“Sorry,” he sighs, resting his forehead against the door. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Was barely sleeping.” She brushes off his apology. “I caught plenty of rest this afternoon.”

It’s meant to be a joke, but it’s horrifying to remember her like that.

“Can I come in?”

“It’s not safe.  _I’m_ not safe.”

He wants to push her on that, but he’s not sure this is the moment to do so.

“Then I’ll stay out here,” he offers. He sinks down against the door, leaning back, and then there’s a muffled thud on the other side.

“You don’t have to stay with me.”

“You don’t honestly think I’m here out of a sense of obligation, do you?”

“Aren’t you?”

She sounds so  _bitter_ , so unlike Skye, and it hurts.

“No. You know why I’m here.”

She’s silent on the other side of the door, and he’s scared for a moment that she’ll make him explain, that she’ll tell him she doesn’t know.

That doesn’t happen, though. Instead, she goes quiet.

“Everyone’s scared.”

“They’re probably a lot less scared than you are. And a lot worse at knowing how to handle it.”

“Why aren’t you scared?”

“I  _am_ scared,” he admits, voice too quiet. “I’m scared of what this means for you.”

“You should be scared for yourself.”

“No,” he shakes his head, “I shouldn’t. You’ve been given a gift you can’t control, yet, but Skye...you will learn.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you will take every precaution to avoid hurting other people. That’s what you’ve done today, that’s what I’ve seen, and that’s what I know of you.”

“Why doesn’t everyone else know that?”

There’s something so raw to it, though, and it occurs to him that he’s never heard her demand any sort of attention, any sort of acceptance before. But the fact that she hasn't demanded those things doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt her when people fail to see what's there.

What she’s saying now, it might well be something she couldn’t ever say to someone else.

“They do know,” he promises her. “They do. They’re scared, and it’s making them stupid. But they will all figure it out, and you’ll have a line of people at your door, wanting to apologize.”

“I don’t want their apologies.”

“I know.”

“I just want them to trust me. I need them to trust me. I’m not…”

She trails off in tears, and Coulson presses his head back against the door. He wants to touch her so much it hurts.

“I  _know_.”

He can hear her sobs, can hear the raw pain of abandonment in her voice.

“I would kill myself before I hurt someone.”

The words are so sad, so broken, and they  _hurt_. God they hurt.

“And that’s why I’m scared. You can’t...you have to promise me you won’t…”

“ _You_ did, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“You asked May to take you out if it came to it.”

“Yes.”

“Well, if I —”

“No.”

"Coulson —”

" _No_."

“It’s not your call to make.”

“The hell it isn’t,” he almost yells.

“But —”

“If you need to be subdued, you have my word that I will do that. I won’t let anything happen that will hurt you or others. But I won’t take you out. And I won’t let anyone on this team do it, either.”

He won’t make any choices for her  _except this one_. (And his situation is hardly comparable to hers anyways; Skye, as near as he can tell, is in no danger of losing her mind.)

There’s a long silence between them.

“I told Raina that I don’t believe in destiny," she whispers in a broken voice, barely audible through the door.

He doesn’t know how to respond to that. Not really.

“Do you ever think about the fact that your first mission after they gave you the GH-325, you met me?”

“Yes,” he admits.

“And how if you hadn’t picked me up —”

“You wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

“I was going to say  _you_ wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

Coulson drops his head down onto his knees and breathes deeply. It would actually be easier, he thinks, if Skye was ready to rage against what had happened to her. At least then he could rage with her.

“Do you believe in fate?” She asks, voice quiet.

“No,” Coulson answers. “No. I don’t.”

“I’m starting to wonder.”

They don’t say much else, just sit together.

He’s all but asleep when he hears Skye’s voice whisper:

“Coulson? Are you awake?”

He dozes off before he can answer.

 

3.

_He knows only his mission._

_He must get the specimens to the temple. Then he must protect them until they are needed._

_His mission is only to protect the weapons. Without the weapons, they will lose._

 

Coulson wakes up in a cold sweat, back aching from being hunched against the door.

The images lodged in his head frighten him — terrify him, really — and he can’t decide if it’s because  _he thought this was over_ or because he knows it’s connected to Skye.

Deep breaths, in and out, do nothing to slow his heart rate, and all he can think is that the needs to see her.

He rises slowly, stretching out the kinks in his back, and presses in the code to open the room. It’s shifty as hell, though — entering without her permission,  _needing_ to see her after that dream.

He doesn’t push inside, just stands there.

Skye is the one who opens the door.

“I was wondering if you were going to do it.”

Her voice is scratchy and raw, and the sound of it — the reminder of her tears — makes him want to cry.

Coulson swallows and runs his eyes over her, dressed in sweats and an oversized sweatshirt that hangs off her shoulder. It’s only been five hours since he last saw her, since he last touched her, but he feels starved of her.

And for the first time, May’s implications start to sink in.

“Coulson?”

Skye calls his attention, and he blinks several times.

“Yes.”

She raises her eyebrows, and he’s aware that he responded to something without knowing what it was.

“I said you probably shouldn’t be in here. I might…”

“I’ll leave if it’s a problem.”

“I just don’t want to —”

“I know.”

He does know. More than he doesn’t want to be hurt by Skye, he doesn’t want to put her through the horror of hurting him.

She finally looks up at him and frowns.

“Coulson, what’s wrong?”

It makes him sort of laugh.

“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”

“I saw you earlier. _This_ ," she gestures from his face down to his unkempt suit, "is...new.”

“Yeah.”

He runs his hands through his hair and looks down at his feet.

She’s arranged the room into a livable space, not terrible, and he knows that it brings her comfort to be somewhere where she can’t hurt anyone.

“Want to sit?”

Coulson nods, but when she sits back on her bed, she doesn’t invite him to sit next to her. He wouldn’t take it even if she did.

He swallows and takes a seat in the chair by the bed.

“I had a dream,” he finally tells her.

“Bad?”

“Yes. But also maybe...maybe not a dream.”

Everything gets very still for a moment, he could swear she stops breathing.

“About me?”

“No.” He swallows. “Or, not about you specifically.”

“Do you think it was…”

“The alien. Yes.”

She’s quiet, very pointedly not asking him to elaborate.

“You saw why he was here?”

“If it was true,” he interjects. Suddenly he’s not so sure, and he can’t tell if that’s something he wishes or something he really considers a possibility.

Skye’s sad smile says she has no doubts on the matter.

“His job was to get people like me into the temple, wasn’t it?”

He doesn’t answer, but then, he doesn’t have to.

“You tried to keep me away from there,” she points out.

“I did,” he agrees. “I didn’t want you to go down there.”

“But…”

Coulson swallows.

“You didn’t need to want me to go down there. It was just a given, right? If you found the temple I would be with you.”

“What I consciously wanted... Maybe it didn’t matter. Our relationship meant that…”

And he’s just thinking out loud, but the thought clearly lands like a rock on Skye.

“You need to leave.”

Her voice is soft, serious — no tears, no anger, no strong emotion.

“Skye —”

“You need to leave, now.”

He can hear the fear creeping in, and Coulson stands up as there's a rumble that shakes the walls.

“I’m leaving because you asked, not because I’m scared.”

“Well you  _should_ be scared.”

“I’m not.”

He steps back outside the door and rests his forehead against it.

The shaking stops — it doesn’t take long for her to get it under control — and he speaks again.

“I’m not scared of you.”

“You should be.” He can hear her take a deep breath. “And maybe I should be scared of you. Everything between us. Whatever you think you feel for me. It might just be —”

“No.”

“But —”

“No.”

Coulson slams his fist against the door, and the resulting throbbing is almost pleasant. Chases away the things he just can’t think about.

He’s not sure which thoughts he’s more scared of, though — the ones that say that his attachment to Skye has always been a reaction to the GH-325; or the ones that want him to put a definition on this nebulous idea of  _what he feels for Skye_.

That’s a dangerous place to go.

There’s more shaking — not strong enough that it threatens the integrity of the room, but he can hear things moving inside.

“You need to go,” Skye repeats, and Coulson swallows down any response.

“This isn’t over,” he promises.

 

4.

For all intents and purposes, though, it  _is_ over. They don’t talk about it.

For days, they sit together — talking, eating, even laughing, but Skye pretends everything is fine. 

It’s a game Coulson can play, too, but he’s not doing it nearly as well as she is.

And then everything on the football field happens and Coulson utterly loses his ability to keep cool, to pretend that everything might be okay.

 _Nothing is okay_.

He sits by her bed as Simmons examines her, as Simmons starts to piece together what’s happened — that Skye has been turning her powers inward, has been destroying herself to keep them all safe.

May has to almost drag him away so they can process Cal’s merry band of criminals, so that they can begin to figure out what to do with the Index, now.

He feels the eyes of everyone on him, feels how careful he needs to be with every move he makes, how every interaction with Skye will become a source of scrutiny, a source of wondering if he’s compromised, a source of questions to level at his leadership.

On the other hand, though, it’s  _Skye_.

Which makes it a no brainer. (And, he frets somewhere in the back of his mind, perhaps that shows where the trouble is.)  

He sits at his desk after Andrew leaves, Skye's psych eval open in front of him. The immediate resistance he has to this idea — that the best place for Skye could be anywhere but with SHIELD, but with  _him_  — is instant and strong. He hasn't dreamed of his alien blood donor again, and still isn't sure whether it was real or not, but he understands enough to know that what he feels for Skye is human emotion —  distinct from whatever he saw in the dreams.  So maybe, he's decided, it doesn't  _matter_  whether there's fate or alien destiny in play. Maybe what matters is that he cares about Skye.

Which makes his denial of Andrew's suggestions even harder to stomach. It's selfish, his desire for her, when he needs to focus on  _her_. On doing what Skye needs to be okay.

These thoughts are still on his mind when he dozes off on top of her report, still there when he wakes up to see her watching him from the small couch in his office.

“Hi," she smiles at him, and he wonders how long she's been watching him sleep.

“Hi.” His voice is too soft, and he wipes a hand across his face and clears his throat. “You’re stealing my thing,” he refers to her posture as she watches him sleep. His voice is still too soft.

Skye half-laughs, but it’s a broken little sound, like she doesn’t know if there will ever be much to laugh about again.

“I thought we should talk about what Andrew said.”

“You two are on a first name basis?” He deflects the question on purpose and gets a little knowing smile from Skye.

“He told me about his and May’s wedding. We’re practically BFFs.”

“ _I_ never even got to hear about that. Just, one day they were married.”

“Neither of them seem like the impulsive type, though,” Skye offers, warming to his change of topic.

“They’re not,” he agrees. “Even before…”

Skye nods, not needing him to finish that sentence. He’s grateful.

“But there was something about the two of them together,” he finishes his thought. “It made sense.”

“I like him,”

“So do I. He’s a good man.”

“And what he said?”

Coulson frowns because he’d like to never have to think about this. There’s a long moment of silence between them.

“It’s about you. Perhaps you should start.”

“This is my family,” Skye tells him, and she sounds scared and defensive and as though she’s ready to fight to stay.

“I know. You’re…”

He doesn’t know exactly how to finish that sentence, but she looks so  _sad_ ; so in need of more from him.

“Even if you left SHIELD, this would still be your family.”

She shakes her head.

“It wouldn’t be the same.”

He swallows because as much as he wants to believe that it’s true, she’s right.

“I know.”

His chest hurts at the thought of losing her, and he feels pulled to her side — it’s a feeling he doesn’t even try to fight. Slowly, he pushes back from his desk and walks to the couch, takes a seat just a hair too close to her.

“Do you think Andrew is right? That I can’t figure this out as long as I’m here?”

He closes his eyes and breathes slowly, deeply.

“You do, don’t you?” She almost accuses. “You think he’s right.”

“I think that I can’t stand the idea of you hurting yourself because you don’t want to hurt any of us.”

He reaches forward and grasps her wrists gently, running soft fingers over her braces.

“You’d rather I ‘tore continents apart’?”

She says is like it’s ridiculous, but Coulson has to stop himself from agreeing, from telling her that he’d rather  _anything_ other than her hurting herself. The terror of her powers, of the possibility of what she could do, was never so awful as it was when he thought about what she could do  _to her own body_.

Skye sort of smiles at him, like she’s charmed and amused at the obviousness of his non-answer.

“Could you…” Skye pauses and meets his eyes as she struggles for what she wants to say. “You’re the director of SHIELD and I know you have to worry about the whole team. But…could you..." She rolls her eyes at herself. "Stop censoring yourself and just talk to me like we’re just  _us_ for a minute?”

Of course, they’re not  _just us_ . The thing about him and Skye is that they’ve never been any version of “just us” because without SHIELD, without all these layers of duty and family and mystery between them, they wouldn’t be  _any_ sort of “us.” 

But he nods anyways because he understands. As much as he wishes he didn’t, as much as he's not ready to explore what it means, he gets it.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Coulson tells her, letting down too many walls because he’s never been good at this with her. He can keep things compartmentalized when there’s distance between them, but when she’s right here…

“I know.”

“I’d give most anything for you to be able to stay here. I’m going to do everything I can to make that work. But it’s a selfish thing.”

“It’s not selfish. It’s what I want, too.”

He leans forward and slides a hand across her cheek, cupping her face, and pushes down a stupid urge to kiss her.

"The report..."

"Maybe the report is wrong."

They both know it's not, though, that's the thing. As much as he can see her terror at the thought of leaving, he can see that she knows it's probably what she needs. 

“Dr. Garner all but called you suicidal.”

"I'm _not_ , though."

He nods because he knows she's  _not_ , but he also knows that her tendency to worry more about others than herself is still a risk.

"I know what I said before, but you know I what I meant, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do."

“So what’s your point?”

“I want you to put your own well-being first.”

“How can I  _ever_ do that when I could kill so many people?”

She ducks her head down so that his fingers slip away from her cheek, but he doesn’t draw his hand back, instead settles it on her arm and slides a little closer to her.

By leaving. By going somewhere where there are no people to worry about. That's the answer, that's the truth between them, but neither of them speaks it.

When she looks up at him again, it’s with more distance, more of the part of her that can think things through, see the many moving parts of a problem. More of the part of herself that would make her a good Director, he’s thought on more than one occasion.

“You have to think about this as the Director, too.”

“Yes.” Although, the truth is that he'll never make a move that isn't mostly about her; he's long since admitted this about himself.

“Everyone’s watching, right? If you don’t do what Andrew said…”

"It might draw some scrutiny, yes." 

Skye takes a deep, slow breath. 

"So what are you going to do?" 

"We," he corrects her. "The question is what are  _we_  going to do?"

Skye nods once and forces a smile at him.

"Thanks."

“You know I’m making this up as I go.”

“Yeah,” she smiles for real. “I do.” Like that’s a good thing, like it’s not terrifying, like it doesn’t ensure that he’ll make mistakes. But he’ll be able to fix those mistakes, at least.

She holds his eyes for too long, looks at him with so much trust, so much faith. And sometimes he hates how much Skye always seems to give him exactly what he needs; how she seems to embody everything he most wants.

“I don’t want to lose you, Skye."

Skye smiles, and he thinks that probably she came to him because she needed to hear those specific words.

“Are you saying that as the Director of SHIELD or as…”

“Both,” he cuts her off before she has a chance to define whatever the second part is.

“Or is it…”

Her face turns pensive, and Coulson shakes his head.

“It’s not about the GH-325,” he tells her because he’s finally sure of this much. “I don’t know whether that’s still influencing me or not, but he didn’t care for the people he was sent to protect. It was a duty, and they were just weapons.”

“And it’s not like that for you.”

“You know it isn’t. You know I...”

She nods, and he thinks she’s about to pull away when she instead launches herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He reciprocates immediately, arms tight around her middle.

“I care for you, too,” she whispers against the side of his head.

And he has no idea what it means, has no idea what to do with it, so he just holds her tighter.

 

5.

He wakes up first and looks down to where she’s curled into his chest. The sheet has dipped down almost to her waist, showing off the bare expanse of her back. He touches it because he wants to, because it's soft and smooth and warm under his hand.

And because  _this is something he is allowed to do now_ , he lets his palm slide down her spine and feel out the softness of her skin.

It’s been weeks since he last saw her, weeks of not knowing if she was alive or dead, weeks of not knowing if he himself would live or die. It had all put some extra perspective on his thoughts. At the very least, it became clear that there was no point in denying that he’s always known  _exactly_ what it means that he cares for her.

Skye had apparently been on exactly the same page, had greeted him with a rough kiss that almost dared him to deny he felt the same.

As though that would happen.

“Hmm, are you watching me sleep again?”

Her eyes don’t open, but she smiles against his chest and sort of snuggles in tighter, the whole of her naked body pressing more firmly against his. The only clothing she wears — the only clothing between the two of them — is her new gloves that focus, not dampen, which she says she prefers to sleep in and definitely wanted to leave on as they figured out how sex would affect her.

Luckily, her control is good and it hadn’t been an issue.

“Can you blame me?”

He runs his hand down her back again, watching the play of his pale hand against her browner skin.

“Because I’m so good to look at first thing in the morning?”

“Any time of day,” he corrects, trying not to leer.

His hand on her back moves from a soft stroke to a solid exploration, dipping below the hem of the sheet to cup her ass as she begins to lay soft kisses against his scar.

“I missed you,” Skye whispers against his chest.

“Me, too.”

“I thought you were dead —”

“Yeah.”

Yesterday was such a whirlwind of saving the day and then falling into bed that they’ve barely had time to have these conversations.

Coulson rolls her onto her back and props himself above her on his left arm, leaving his right hand free to stroke down the side of her face.

“I love you,” he tells her, and the words aren’t easy to say, but they’re  _true_ and he’s not scared of what they mean anymore.

“I know,” Skye answers, all teasing and playful fire in her eyes. “You made that  _abundantly_ clear with the the whole, ‘Skye, you’re more beautiful than Lola,’ thing.”

Coulson blushes, but is saved from his embarrassment by her hands framing his face.

“I love you, too, you know.”

The words make his chest feel  _full_ , like there’s too much there and he doesn’t know how to handle it; his smile almost hurts his face.

“I never said  _more beautiful than_ Lola,” he snarks at her, trying to pull a bit of a frown. It doesn’t work.

“You didn’t have to,” Skye counters. “That part was obvious.” She arches underneath him, accentuating her breasts, and Coulson lets out a real laugh.

He’s smiling too much to kiss her, so instead he nuzzles against her ear, nipping at her earlobe before trailing his mouth to her neck.

She sighs at the attention, and he pulls back to look at her again — bed head and morning breath and crust in the corner of her eyes — and she’s  _still_ the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“You’re so beautiful. And the way you handled your abilities yesterday...”

“Not bad, right?”

Coulson just shakes his head, still in awe of her.

“Watch this.” She points a gloved finger at an empty water bottle, perched on a table across the room. He turns his head to watch as it begins to shake before falling onto the floor. The targeting and precision of it, the confidence of her movements, the stillness of the rest of the room around her, the fact that  _she is still Skye_ , all make it pretty much the best thing he’s ever seen.

“That is  _so_ cool,” he half-whispers.

“You just got turned on, didn’t you?”

“ _More_ turned on,” he corrects, getting a laugh out of her.

“You told me that what matters is who I’ve always been…”

He cups her face and runs his thumb along her cheekbone.

“Yes,” he agrees.

“But I like that you were never afraid of me. And that now, you think…”

She trails off, like it’s not her place to put exact words on what he thinks of her.

“You’re a miracle.”

He runs his thumb from her cheek down over her smiling mouth, watching with rapt fascination as she parts her lips and sucks the tip inside. When her tongue circles it, he groans, pushing it further into her mouth and holding her eyes as he feels the whole flat of her tongue against the length of his digit. The sensation of it races through his body, lodges in his cock.

“Fuck,” he whispers, “ _Skye._ ”

She releases her suction on his thumb, and he lets it slide slowly past her lips, painting them with her saliva. Then his hand curves down the side of her jaw, and he spreads his fingers across her neck so he can feel her breathe — and  _moan_ softly — under his palm. From her neck, he curls his fingers down around her shoulder before cupping her breast, letting his still-damp thumb flick back and forth over the tip of her nipple.

He’s surprised by the feeling of her hand on his butt, and the slightly-scratchy material of her gloves makes him shiver as she draws his hips down against her so that the underside of his cock presses against the wetness between her thighs.

“Coulson,” she whispers, “please.”

“Yes,” he grunts as he guides himself down, making one slow thrust so that he’s seated deep inside of her.

They moan together, but he doesn’t move.

Instead, he stays still and further adjusts himself up on his knees as Skye raises her hips and wraps her legs around him. In this position, she can grind up against him while he keeps touching her, running hands from her belly to cup her breasts before his right palm curves around her neck again.

He remembers touching her here when she was dying in his arms, remembers what it’s like to touch her neck in fear and sorrow, and relishes the feeling of her pulse — strong and sure under his fingers — as he’s buried inside her, alive and warm and  _with him_.

She moans, tilting her head back to let him curve his fingers up under her jaw, and then clenches tightly around him. Every pulse of her muscles — tight and hot and wet around his cock — makes his vision blur until he can’t help but collapse forwards over her, catching himself with hands on either side of her head.

“Coulson,” she whispers his name as she hitches her legs higher up his waist, and he begins to thrust in earnest — a hard, fast pace that has them both quickly on edge.

He grunts her name as he loses himself in the animal instinct to move with her, dragging his mouth over hers in some approximation of kissing. When he feels himself get close, Coulson drops his head to her shoulder and doubles his pace, wanting only to get her over the edge with him.

Her soft pants grow louder against his ear as she meets him at every thrust, moving with him in perfect unison.

“Don’t stop,” she breathes out between panted breaths and increasingly incoherent moans of his name. Just the sound of her voice pushes him further towards the edge of his own release, so he’s grunting her name in time with his rapid rhythm.

She comes before he does — barely — with a low groan and her gloved hands gripping his back and her whole body tightening around him. He follows almost instantly, lips attached to her neck to muffle his shout of her name.

They collapse together, and Skye rolls with him to pillow her head on his shoulder, a mirror of how they woke up.

“I think I want to go back to sleep,” Skye whispers into his neck.

“I have no problems with that,” Coulson agrees. Not that everything is perfect, but they’ve earned this — this one lazy day in bed together.

“And you’ll still be here when I wake up?”

He understands what she must be feeling — like this is a dream, like it’s too good to be true — and kisses the top of her head.

“Yeah.”


End file.
